HardwareNvidia GeForce RTX 5090The RTX 5090 Founders Edition might be svelte but the Asus ROG Astral cards are absolute chonkersWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
HardwareNvidia GeForce RTX 5090The RTX 5090 Founders Edition might be svelte but the Asus ROG Astral cards are absolute chonkersWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Future)
Yesterday seems like forever ago now, doesn’t it? Or that could be the jet lag ruining my sense of time. Anyway, apparently we had an Nvidia keynote, and apparently theRTX 50-series GPUswere finally unveiled. I seemed to have a whale of a time, as I wrote an article dedicated to nerding out over just how svelte and menacing the newRTX 5090 Founders Editionlooks.
Today, however, I visited theAsussuite at CES 2025. And the RTX 5090s I saw were, for lack of a better word, humongous. Chonky. Proper thicc. How about this one for starters:
(Image credit: Future)
That’s theAsus ROG Astral GeForce RTX 5090, and it is anything but svelte. However, it’s definitely got the intimidation factor nailed down, thanks to a quad fan cooler (three on one side, one on the back).
I kid, I kid. Actually, it’s pretty impressive looking in person. In combination with those four fans, Asus has equipped the Astral card with a patented vapor chamber and a phase-change GPU thermal pad. That, combined with some boosted default clock speeds, should make for a behemoth of a GPU.
I’d like to hear it in action, but alas, these mega GPUs were merely for display. Still, if you thought the regular Astral was big, check out the liquid cooled version:
(Image credit: Future)
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There’s something about the shroud design that makes the RTX 5090 look like it’s been caged for safety reasons, like Hannibal Lecter. Keep it locked up lest it eat all your games for breakfast, that sort of thing.
This is why I don’t write marketing copy for a living, folks. Too much of a maverick. Anyhoo, prices are yet to be revealed for these two giants—but if I were a betting man I’d say… seriously pricey. I mean, that’s going to be the takeaway from anyRTX 5090edition for the foreseeable future, but all this extra cooling can’t come cheap.
CES 2025(Image credit: Future)Catch up withCES 2025:We’re on the ground in sunny Las Vegas covering all the latest announcements from some of the biggest names in tech, including Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Asus, Razer, MSI and more.
CES 2025
(Image credit: Future)Catch up withCES 2025:We’re on the ground in sunny Las Vegas covering all the latest announcements from some of the biggest names in tech, including Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Asus, Razer, MSI and more.
(Image credit: Future)
Catch up withCES 2025:We’re on the ground in sunny Las Vegas covering all the latest announcements from some of the biggest names in tech, including Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Asus, Razer, MSI and more.
I have to say, though, standing next to these cards in person I couldn’t help but be impressed. Chonky they may be, but there’s something wonderfully overbuilt about both of them that tickles my fancy. One last question comes to mind, however—does the RTX 5090 really need this much cooling if it’s pushed past its default clocks? We’ll have to wait and see, I guess, but I suppose there’s no harm in overdoing it.
Now, I’m off to buy the worlds biggest case to house one of these monster GPUs. Oh, and I’d better buy a lottery ticket while I’m there. That’d probably help, too.
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